


Eye of the Beholder

by legendarytobes



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: 4.02 someone's been reading dante's inferno, Angst, Deckerstar - Freeform, F/M, Whump, Wingfic, Wings, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24592546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendarytobes/pseuds/legendarytobes
Summary: A bit of a different take of 4.02. Chloe's on set with Lucifer when the building explodes onThe Cabinset and he saves her from the fire with his wings.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 30
Kudos: 117





	Eye of the Beholder

**Eye of the Beholder**

_Based on a prompt by Not_One_Line at FH_

Their rhythm had felt better since their case with the witness protection agent who had gone round the bend. Lucifer found comfort in the Detective coming to see him after he’d run off, confident that if she’d taken his injured hand in hers then they were on even footing. But he had to admit that this case with _The Cabin_ was also pointing out the cracks in their spackled over relationship.

Earlier, he’d tried to be an open book about his history as the Devil, to face all her natural curiosity with good humor. But it had devolved quickly enough into something that felt too uncomfortably like an interrogation.

And to think the Detective had asked if he’d bitten the heads off children! Even if he honestly didn’t detest children on principle, albeit the Detective’s urchin was at least bearable, he would never eat them. He wasn’t a monster, and he wasn’t quite sure that the Detective understood that. It wasn’t entirely her fault of course. She’d had the last month and then some to search Google or go to libraries, Dad forbid even consult a church leader or some such rot. There was quite a bit of bad propaganda against him from a variety of faiths.

Wasn’t like pop culture tended to do him a bit of good either.

She would have questions like any mortal, and Lucifer just had to accept that. Not that he was one to be patient. It had never been in his nature, and that impudence, of course, played no small part in both his Rebellion and probably starting it too early to be effective. With eons to look back on failure, Lucifer could admit that much. So, no, he was inherently impatient, but to have Chloe understand him better, he’d do his best.

It didn’t make things feel more fretful or any less heavy as she swept the main lodge of _The Cabin_ set with him, torches out (at least for her sake) and hunting for any clues they could. It wasn’t as if they were talking amongst themselves. Both of them were, rightly, trying to focus on anything that might be out of place, any blunt object that might have matched some of the wounds found on the victim. But where they usually would have moved side by side, every step in sync (more so on her end since the Detective had to take a couple for every one of his), they were loosely connected.

Her torch, more often than not, landed on his back, and he noticed how often she fell behind him. So far, she’d never stepped ahead of him, and a not inconsiderable part of him had to wonder if at least instinctually, the Detective was scared of being that vulnerable to him, of being unable to keep him completely in her view.

Sighing, he turned and forced his torchlight to the ground. It created a long trail to her feet but at least didn’t shine in the Detective’s eyes. “Are you still nervous, Chloe?”

She stilled, and he hoped it was more a reaction to hearing her name, something he didn’t do often. However, Lucifer was trying to reach her, to let her know he was being as open with her as possible.

“I…”

He swallowed hard and tried to ignore the bitterness rising in his throat. “It’s quite alright. It would be understandable considering the circumstances. We’ve only been back at this a couple weeks, and not seven days ago, you saw me hold down at SUV with only some effort.”

“Some?” she asked, and he didn’t like the breathiness of her voice. The fear there. It was so unlike her.

“Well, there are demons down below who, over the millennia, have tended to riot and rebel on their own. I know, the irony. Some are more fearsome and far heavier than a car of that design. However, I’m also rusty and so I can’t lie and say I didn’t break a sweat. But I do understand that for a mortal, it would be quite a sight. I mean at the instinctive level. I truly appreciate that you came to see me after and that you want to try, that I’m still at your side and we’re planning a date. It’s just…I also understand that there can be a difference between what you want and what you feel.”

The Detective nodded but kept her torch gripped tightly in her hand, so much so that he wondered if she’d strain it with the effort. He blinked a bit at the onslaught of light in his eyes. “I’m trying, and I really do want that date as soon as we close the case. I just…” her shoulders shrugged, and Lucifer hadn’t seen her this unsure in a while. “…you’re right. It’s cop habit. I don’t like to have my back uncovered.”

“And I usually cover your backside quite well, Detective,” he offered, giving her a sly smile because playing into any entendre at all was what he did. Who he was. Although of late, it felt like an ill-fitting suit instead.

Maybe everything at the loft had changed them both.

“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes a little, and he felt for a moment as if they might be okay again. Then, the Detective continued, and he could hear the way her voice wavered and all because she was still scared of him. “It’s just that maybe it’ll take some time to get used to in the field having the actual Devil watch my back.”

He let out a long sigh but tried to keep the smile planted on his face. It was, perhaps, more of a lie with at least body language than he usually allowed himself. “And I do understand that you’re the one getting used to me. As I’ve said, I’m fortunate to have you tolerate me at all and to give this new arrangement a chance, that you’re willing to have the Devil incarnate as your work partner, now that you know.”

“Well, you’re still pretty good on a case. Sometimes, it’s like herding cats, but you know, that hasn’t changed,” she offered, trying to smile at him but it felt ill-suited on her face as well.

He gave her a low bow at of formality. “Yes, well, I should say that first, you have to understand that whatever you’ve heard about me, I do _not_ hurt living humans, and I do not relish the job of guarding Hell or torturing souls at all. You’ve nothing to fear from me and neither does anyone at the precinct or your spawn. You do understand that, don’t you?”

She swallowed and there was a pause before her answer, one that was too long for Lucifer’s taste. “I know, and you helped me on the last case and on this one. I’ve had you save my life a half-dozen times at least, and you came for me and Trixie at the hangar with Malcolm. Maybe getting shot wasn’t the best play but…”

“Quite. It was far from the heroic save I’d have planned on,” he admitted. “However, I must also say that if it’s too much all at once and while I very much have been looking forward to our date, if you are only trying to readjust to me as a work partner and, I hope, a friend, then that can come later.”

That last part was hard to say because after so much, it was everything Lucifer very much wanted, but even he could see that the truth of the world and his existence was weighing heavily on Chloe. Perhaps, a bit of a strategic pare down, such that she could understand who he was first before focusing on anything more amorous. Whatever it took so he wouldn’t lose her completely. The last month had taught him that possibility was both unfathomable and unbearable.

“No! I mean, of course I still want to date. Look, I’m sorry, the question about killing people and eating babies, those were jerk things to say. I do trust you, but I admit it might take some more time for me to get used to it completely than I thought.” She emphasized her point by stepping forward and taking his now healed hand and squeezing it. “I’m sorry I was so rude and crappy.”

He relaxed a little at the softness of her touch and tried to take heart from that, from feeling as if she weren’t actually slipping away from him. “You were human, and I can be patient. Again, Detective, if you just want to be friends and work partners for a while, to make the pressure less on us both, I do understand that. As long as you understand that I would never harm you. Ever.”

She blinked up at him, and he thought her eyes were a little shinier than normal, as if she were holding back tears. “I know that,” the Detective replied, squeezing his hand again. “I do, and I _want_ that date. I’m glad you’re still planning on it after literally all the baby eating questions. I have no idea what the Hell I was thinking.”

“Operative term, that,” he said, then he stilled. A sudden hissing sound caught his attention and his nose caught the hint of something noxious. Gas if he weren’t mistaken. “Detective! Run!”

It took a few more seconds before Chloe detected the same changes, the chance someone had screwed with the ovens in the back of the mess hall. But leaking gas on a set with a murder already…

She and he ran but he was faster, and Lucifer grabbed Chloe up in his arms and carried her as fast as he could, but there was a spark out of his peripheral vision. Even as they got to the porch of the lodge, Lucifer felt the first concussion of a full explosion.

He stumbled and covered the Detective with his whole body and, out of instinct, his mangled wings---ones he hadn’t dared to check in over a month---tore from his back. The pain of them jutting out was enough to rival any burn he’d received in the Lake of Fire when landing in Hell. He knew they had to be dying as Amenadiel’s once had, that they were rotting off as his penance for killing a human.

But they were at least still there, still enough to help him cover the Detective as flames surged around them, and her fragile, human skin would have been burned to cinders without him. The flames subside eventually, and he is able to carry her further even with his own vulnerability near her. Once he gets back to _Lux_ , he’ll tend to his own burns by drinking himself to a stupor and letting his body heal infernally whilst he’s passed out.

Besides, compared to the variety of wounds and burns he’s suffered over the eons, the pain in his already rotted wings and his shoulders and legs feels like pin pricks.

The Detective is alive, and like always, that is all that matters.

He set her down on a bench a few hundred yards from the lodge. It shaded them by trees even as the fire brigade and emergency services from the production crew advanced on the engulfed set. His wings still ached and burned, and he has tried, but he couldn’t banish them away just yet, and Lucifer had _no_ interest in exposing any other mortals to failing divinity. At best, he’d have a flock of drooling humans, no better than Carmen, over what was left of his feathery burdens. At worst, there would be a long, dramatic lecture from Amenadiel about exposing humans to (former) angels and clean up to do.

Neither of those options were appealling, so until the Detective woke, and he was sure she was safe, he hovered over her in the shadows, mostly sure that no one will notice him and his Dad-forsaken wings.

She stirred finally, and he wasn’t scared---not really---as he could see the steady rise and fall of her chest, but he was worried a bit. There was more to consider in matters of human health than if they’re just breathing at all. When the Detective sat up, she startled a bit, and her eyes focused not on his eyes but darted instead between spots over his shoulders.

He reminded himself that she had never seen _them_ before, that even if he unfurled them to save her life, bore the insult of a barrage of bullets, that the Detective remained oblivious to it all. Even half-rotten and still crusted with blood, he knew that his wings must have been an overwhelming sight for any human.

Another reminder that what she wrote off for years as “metaphors” must be anything but.

He nodded towards her but didn’t dare move from his tree, from the patch of darkness that obscured his wings at least a little to her. She was a miracle, that much was true, but Lucifer had no idea if that insulated her at all from his dwindling divine side, if it would keep her from prostrating herself before his wings as if worshipping a false idol.

Again, better safe than sorry.

“Apologies, Chloe, but I can’t…they hurt of late. I think it’s because I took quite the volley of shots at the loft on them. I know they’re dying. It’s happened before to other angels, never to me, but I can feel the way they’ve been faltering. But they were strong enough to cover you, to keep the flames from your face. I just don’t have the energy yet to push them away and off this mortal plane.”

Her jaw hung low and her eyes still flitted between one wing and the other. “Faltering?”

“They were injured in the loft, at the shootout, and I haven’t called them forth since then. They still probably have a few bullets lodged in them as I couldn’t get them out myself. But yes the pain is rather intense currently and shunting them aside is beyond me. Again, I apologize. I know you’re getting used to the ‘Devil stuff’ not just being, let us be charitable and say, my _eclectic_ ramblings. I would will them away if I could. I know you’re just dealing step by step, and they can be rather a lot.”

As if they had a mind of their bloody own, the appendages in question flared out a bit behind his back, and the Detective pushed herself again the bench. She regained her composure shortly after, but they both knew she flinched.

It was enough to drive a sharp pang through his heart that Lucifer refused to focus on in this moment. He couldn’t leave her scared like this. If he did, she’d most likely never ring him again, never ask for his help on a case or come by _Lux_.

“Chloe, I meant what I promised, and you know me to be a Devil of my word, for good or ill. I would never harm you or anyone for that matter. I’m neither a monster or a killer.” His wings flared again, and he sighed. “Cain was the first, and because he both asked for help finally ending his curse and because he almost murdered you and did kill poor Charlotte. I promise never to make a habit of it, and considering the damage Father has wrought on my wings, I don’t think He'd exactly approved either.”

The Detective was still shaking, but he gave her immense credit and applauded her strength for standing and then coming to stand still a few inches from him. Her hand reached up and her shivered a little at the feeling of her hand on the bare flesh of his wing, and dear Dad, he must have lost so many feathers by now if he could feel that so easily. How much longer would he have wings at all and, after the frustration of last year, now that he has used them twice to save the Detective’s life, Lucifer will actually miss the feathered (or formerly feathered) menaces terribly.

“Chloe, you don’t have to.”

She shook her head. “I said we’re not just work partners or friends. I want all of it, Lucifer. I want to date. I care about you so much, and I meant what I said on Forrest Clay’s balcony even if that seems like a lifetime ago.”

“Feels that way to _both_ of us, darling.”

She nodded and dropped her hand from the tip of his injured wing to cup his face instead. “You’re not the Devil, not to me. I just…I _will_ get used to it, and once we close this case, we’ll start getting used to all of it---getting _past_ it---with our date.” She punctuated her point with kissing him then, her lips soft on his and as tender and generous as they’d been on Clay’s balcony and before she truly understood all that he was.

And wasn’t.

When she broke away from him, she offered him a watery smile. “Can you pull them back in?”

He concentered again and screamed when he felt the burns up and down his back and the ache deep in his shoulders when he failed to force his wings away yet again. “No, they’re so injured of late. I can’t deal with them, and with the added burns…I do think I can fly on them if I need to get as far as _Lux_ , however. It’s not ideal…” He barked out a harsh laugh. “Though neither is making the nighttime news for being an angel in Los Angeles, either.” 

“You need to go. I don’t want to explain anything like this to the precinct either.” And her eyes couldn’t, even now, stay focused on his face as much as his wings.

Then again, they’d be rotten off completely soon enough and not a problem for either of them. Not really.

He reached out and stroked some of that beautiful, golden hair of hers back from her face. “Well, Detective, I’ll take my leave. These feathery burdens should finally retract before morning so I’ll text for where we go next on the case.”  
  


She smiled at him, and it was, as always, the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen in all of creation. “And the sooner we finish…”

“…the sooner the first, real date, yes,” he said, brightening at that, despite the pain in his wings.

With that, Lucifer drifted into a clearing and braced himself for the pain of flapping away. He gritted his teeth as he took off, shaking a bit on wings that were easily half bare skin instead of feathers, but still managed to shakily get him aloft. Even now, he couldn’t bear to look at them, and he was so very ashamed that the only time the Detective would ever get to see his wings would be when they were defiled messes like this.

Truly, once they’d been some of the most splendid in the Silver City. After all, his pride had to have come from somewhere, hadn’t it?

But she was alive and safe, and that was what mattered, even if it had been accomplished with such faltering abominations of wings. Lucifer took as much comfort in that as he could as he bit his inner cheek through the pain to avoid screaming out and drawing the attention of the medics and fire brigade and took off into the night.

**

Chloe couldn’t stop shaking.

She was glad that this was one of those nights that Dan had Trixie because she couldn’t even _try_ and fake that she was okay, not tonight. She’d been trying desperately and, okay, often failing in Europe, to convince her pre-teen that she was fine, that she wasn’t having nightmares night after night of eyes that burned with living flame, a knife buried deep in the Sinnerman’s chest, and Lucifer’s scared, demonic face.

And for a few moments, during the last few cases, she’d managed to tell herself that Kinley was wrong, that Lucifer was nothing like _that Lucifer_ , that he was no demon from the Bible who would spread fires and pal around with Nazis. That he was _anything_ but evil incarnate.

It was easy to feel like he was the same. Not as easy when he held an SUV still like it was almost nothing to him. Or even when he survived an explosion with a few burns to his wings and charred spots to his suit but little more. But when they’d sat by the piano, it had felt comfortable, like friends…like _something more_ all over again. Same when he’d been so shy but tried first to ask her to dinner before she’d beaten him to the punch.

He _felt_ like the partner she’d always known.

But then a scared, gibbering corner of her mind argued that Lucifer couldn’t have earned the name The Prince of Lies for no reason either.

But tonight, even if he’d saved her life again, she still couldn’t get the image out of her mind. She’d be assimilating it to the nightmares that had plagued her for weeks. Because Lucifer had joked often before that he “manscaped” and looked _nothing_ like the red-skinned, bellowing menace in the _Filii Hircus_ portraits.

But that was a lie.

She’d _seen them_. No matter how oddly he seemed to be rambling about feathers and how they had to be rotting off by now, the wings she’d seen were dark red, leathery bat wings. As large and monstrous as any painting or depiction she’d read about the Devil while in Rome or by Googling him on the computer. They’d even been topped by two wickedly sharp spikes, things she could see all too easily impaling a human---no matter what Lucifer had said about Pierce being his first victim---if he got angry.

What if he got tired of playing nice? What if someone at the precinct like Dan who was very much about bad mouthing Lucifer of late set the Devil off? What utter damage could wings that couldn’t be really burned by an explosion---at least not much--- _do_?

She barely made it into her home, the one she’d unknowingly shared with a demon for over a year, one that she’d let the Devil and Hell’s biggest torturer come to dozens of times around her child, before Chloe sprinted to her guest bathroom and wretched.

It was more than the burned face or the hellfire eyes. More than the strength she couldn’t understand. If his wings looked like that, and he’d _lied_ about them years ago, what else was different? How dangerous was he underneath it all and how much was he lying to her even now?

She retched again and finally flushed and then wiped her face off with a cool washcloth. It took everything she could to get to her bedroom, shut and lock the door and then turn on every light in the room. Her service revolver was on her bed side table, loaded and ready. At least she knew that much _could hurt him_. Even if Malcolm’s shot hadn’t permanently killed Lucifer, and that made sense because what could actually kill the Devil, but even then, she knew bullets could slow him down.

Shaking, Chloe pulled her cell phone from her jeans pocket and called Father Kinley. Everything she’d seen and experienced that night fell from her lips in a fast torrent of words and fear and begging for help.

On the other end, he was as calm and implacable as always. A rock for her swirling emotions. “My child, the burden you have to banish the Devil from earth is an enormous and frightful one, but you’re doing well. Tell me, are you still on for your date? It’s then we can use the vial.”

She shuddered, a small part of her---a part dying more and more since she’d seen _them_ \---still tried to remind her of all the good things Lucifer had done for her and her family. For the way that somehow and even now she had no idea how, he’d gotten the antidote to save her life from Dr. Carlisle’s poison. This was betrayal, even if he were the Devil, and Chloe had never done anything like this in her whole life.

But the eyes. The face. The wings.

He was the Devil, and she couldn’t keep denying all that _that_ meant any longer.

“Yes, we have to finish and close this case, but I think by this weekend, it’ll be set.”

“Good, keep me informed. Chloe, you’re doing so well. God is lucky to have you on His side.”

She could barely answer to that since all of this felt wrong underneath, but the fear was screaming at her now that it had to be done. If Lucifer hurt other people at the station like Dan or Ella, if he came for Trixie, it would all be her fault. She couldn’t live with that either.

“Thank you. I’ll be in touch.”

She hung up the phone then, not interested in hearing Kinley any longer. Instead, she curled up in her bed, turned on the TV to some nonsense infomercial just to have sound in her room, and tried to sleep.

Even though every time she closed her eyes all she could see were red, crispy, bat-like wings with claws that looked ready to tear through human flesh.

**Author's Note:**

> Not_One_Line's full prompt:
> 
> _Season 4 AU, pre-poisoning. Something happens during episode 1/2 that causes Lucifer to unfurl his wings out of instinct. He is hurt, and knocked unconscious before he sees them. When he wakes, he's lying face down on the ground, with Chloe hovering him. He tries to retract his wings, but can't due to the pain. He tells her to leave, but she swallows her fear (because she has to at that point, poisoning plan n'all) and insists on staying to help. Lucifer stays silent while she tends to his injuries, until Chloe asks him, "Do they always look like this?" at which point he tells her he doesn't want to know what they look like, doesn't want to see them dying like his brother's did. Eventually, he is able to retract them, having never actually looked at them. When Chloe leaves, it's revealed he already has the bat wings, and she takes them as one more piece of evidence that he is evil._


End file.
